Some notes on the collection



These resist dyed felts form four distinct groups.

Group 1.
Dating from the 15th./16th. Century  these use a good quality wool; fleece curls are visible on the surface of the felt , and the art often resembles that of the  Yuan period rather than the Ming.
Group 2.
Dating 17th. century. Highly accomplished art and the use of a course kempy low land wool vertical and horizontal format the latter having a lower panel.
Group 3.
Dating probably to the 18 th. Century. Made with a uniform even felt, to date all have Greek key borders and a horizontal format with a lower panel.

Limited components add to the accomplishment of the art as in blue and white ceramics.

Mongol Art and the Yuan
Before the Yuan period, (1260- 1341) the Chinese must have viewed the felts and other woolen textiles produced by Mongols and the nomads of the steppe in much the same way they did the arts of these nomadic peoples in general; the crude production of their dangerous neighbors to the north. The Chinese were the masters of silk, which was a great foundation for their wealth and had spurred an international trade stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean. The nomadic peoples of Inner Asia and the steppe had traditionally supplied the Chinese only with raw goods such as jade and horses. However, following the conquest of the Middle Kingdom by these same nomads and their founding of the Yuan dynasty even the most refined Chinese art became amenable to influence from the steppe. Though the Yuan rulers had rapidly been acculturated by their Chinese subjects, they retained a strong identification with the nomadic world of their ancestors. This was then transmitted to the courtly arts of the period.
It was during this time that felt carpets developed a status as luxury goods in China. Yuan sources contain the following accounts of the desire of the imperial court for such fine felt textiles. In 1299 felt carpets were manufactured for the 'Palace of the Special Chambers' (imperial harem) and in 1325 seven carpets measuring 8,050 square feet were delivered to the palace. In the same year the imperial ancestral hall was furnished with five felt carpets with floral designs. Similar reports fill the pages of the annals. In fact, according to one source, the quality of felt carpets became so refined that the artistry of felt carpets was said to have equaled that of the best knotted carpets and at times even surpassed it.

Felts are usually totally utilitarian and get used and discarded but our survivors have a high enough graphic value to be treasured  with thanks to the Tibetan monastic climate. They also represent  one of the earliest groups of non-archeological floor coverings from Chinese / Mongolia
( the group of rugs with Timurid related borders in Japan are related to the felts and of similar age. The Shoso-in also has a wonderful group of Tang felts.)

Three have been published by Hali . There is also one published by Lee Yu-Kan plate no .1.  Fourteen resist felts are published here and represent a major chunk of known examples, which to-date total only thirty six mostly group 3 pieces. Four have been C-14 carbon dated, with three testing to the late 15th and 16th centuries, and one inconclusively to the late 17th/.
    
Technique
All of the felts are resist-dyed using a paste and most use stencils (probably paper), with more paste applied in a freehand manner. Two group 1 and one group 2 felts are completely free hand. They are then dyed with madder, although some of them show evidence that other colors were also applied (yellow, and sometimes blue). Strangely, the technique of resist-dying actually makes the white ground pieces more time consuming to produce.
There are three different dye groups among the felts.  The oldest ones (group 1) use a slightly variegated beautiful, strawberry red madder .  The low land wool felts ( group 2 ) are made of a dryer, coarser, warm climate wool (as do the imperial carpets of the Forbidden City) this may prove to be a possible clue for dating as a change in wool sources could be related to a historical event  or a change of workshop location , some have a darker and more bluish-red dye. (interestingly, this color was identified by Nobiko Kaijitany as possibly being lac).  The  group 3  felts, have a more refined surface and very even madder color.

Origin
To date, I have seen two old photographic references showing this type of felt being used, one was taken in Tibet and the other in Szechwan province of China .  However, most of those pictured here were found in Tibet.
The exact origin of manufacture for these early felts remains a mystery.  The art depicted on them is definitely Chinese Mongolian and not Tibetan.
Their structural and design affinities certainly suggest that they were all manufactured in one workshop or community.  They probably found a good market on the Silk Route as cheaper luxury goods, since they had to be more affordable than silks or piled carpets, some of these items found their way to Tibet as donation and right of passage items  as did expensive Chinese silks and piled carpets.

As for origin, a definitive answer remains a mystery, though Mongolia is a strong possibility.  Inner Mongolia is a good candidate as in Paotou a relatively new town there is a late tradition of rug weaving that includes horizontal pictorial designs and the use of broken borders as seen in six of the felts shown here. Other candidates are the Kansu corridor, the great wall area's,  the silk route east .But it is futile to speculate on the origin when  the information is there to be found some day.
Due to the way these felts are made, field designs developed without the technological restraints that typify woven textiles such as, rigid geometry, repetition, stripes and angular drawing.  This enabled a pictorial style to evolve that is closer to ceramic painting, where we see similar designs on pieces contemporary with the felts.
Chinese art is easily categorized according to period. Yet, these earlier felts are harder to define and more reminiscent of Yuan art than that of the Ming.  This may be due to the provincial nature of manufacture.
Perhaps, though, there are more clues regarding this question of origin than appear at first glance. Further study might focus on the supply, quality, and variation of wool for felt, the trade in blank felt panels or the availability and import of madder for dyeing. It is interesting to note that Ningxia rugs, which utilize designs specifically made for the Tibetan market, do not use madder dye. Weather this is because of purely aesthetic considerations, functional considerations such as the alleged natural insecticide properties of logwood dye, or the scarcity of madder in Ningxia is difficult to determine. 
Design Motifs
On these early felts, we typically find depictions of a wide range of flora and fauna: horses, deer, birds, dragons, lion-dogs, bats, fish, insects, flowering plants, trees, fungus as well as landscapes, buildings, boats, musical instruments, fruit, clouds, rocks and coral.
Through time they change from functional objects to decorative directional wall hangings. The design repertoire is incredibly wide when compared with Ningxia workshop rugs, the group shows great artistic development and a successful commercial enterprise enduring for  more than 300 years of production.
Deer are a favored motif among the early examples catalog  3, 4, and 5 which can be found on early Ming blue and white ceramics from the mid 14th century through to the 16th. Century, deer are depicted with antlers and with a uni horn often in pairs and holding a flower (cocks comb) and fungus of immortality (Ardebil shrine collection  A7 , A8 and A179 , A180 ) on the back cover there is a drawing from a Tang silver dish of a uni horned deer which probably evolved from the depictions with fungus, any way there is a connection between the properties of antler and fungus in Chinese tradition are both believed to aid longevity.
As for Prunus, a design common  on Ming  blue and white ceramics it is quite  interesting to compare two examples catalog 6, and 12 one earlier Ming and the other late Ming .
Exotics of the Silk Road
From Antioch to Nara, from sea to salty sea a monofiber a web of trade linked east to west un west to east.
Exotics were exchanged. Felt from Mongolia came to Japan and Mediterranean purple gold to Ch'ang-an.
AT THAT TIME  China's Tang , Japan imported Mongolian felts now residing in the Shoso-in. Through the 16th.17th.centurys Mongolian felts are depicted (plane red and with red white design ) on scroll paintings. Existing blank and tigma or tie die design felts (of the same format and structure as our group) known as tea felts  are treasured antique imports from Mongolia.





Thank you for looking at this article all of the textiles published here are for sale .